Faculty

A diverse group of people make up the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) and the program in Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures and Media (AMCM). A wide geographical range (from Japan to Central Asia) and research fields (from the classics to contemporary media) are covered by award-winning and highly accomplished professors. Affiliated members ensure rigorous engagement with different humanistic disciplines for graduate students. Teachers of Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Hmong, Japanese, and Korean—all recognized for their high pedagogical skills—produce language savvy students year after year.

Regular Faculty

Fall 2023 and Spring 2024

Name	Contact	Specialties
Shir Alon Assistant Professor	230C Folwell Hall alon@umn.edu	Literary temporalities; theories of world literature; gender theory; postcolonial theory and decolonization; historiography of the modern Middle East
Palita Chunsaengchan Assistant Professor	327E Folwell Hall palitac@umn.edu	Comparative Media Aesthetics; Film theory / historiography; Early Thai Cinema; "Media Modernity"; Cinema and Politics of Class, Production and Circulation; Contemporary Southeast Asian Cinema
Joseph Farag Associate Professor	220M Folwell Hall jrfarag@umn.edu on sabbatical 2023-2024	Palestinian literature and film; modern Arabic literature; Arab cultural studies; modern Arab history, politics, and society; Arab-American studies
Alia Goehr Assistant Professor	228C Folwell Hall agoehr@umn.edu
Maki Isaka Professor	223 Folwell Hall isaka@umn.edu	Japanese theater and literature; gender studies
Alexander Jabbari Assistant Professor	220N Folwell Hall ajab@umn.edu
Christine Marran Professor	327C Folwell Hall marran@umn.edu on leave Spring 2024	Japanese popular culture from the 1870s to the present; Japanese literature; Early Meiji writing, especially newspapers and gesaku literature; Gender, sexuality, and identity in print and film culture; Ethics and the animal; Japanese and Asian film
Jason McGrath Professor Director of Undergraduate Studies	225 Folwell Hall jmcgrath@umn.edu amesdus@umn.edu (for DUS matters)	Chinese and international cinemas; modern and contemporary Chinese literature and culture; realism in fiction, film, and theory; issues of convention and intertextuality in film theory; art and the nation; Chinese and Western Marxism
Paul Rouzer Professor	230D Folwell Hall prouzer@umn.edu	Traditional East Asian poetry and poetics; Buddhism and its relation to pre-modern and modern literature; classical Chinese literary traditions in Japan
Nida Sajid Assistant Professor	231D Folwell Hall nsajid@umn.edu	South Asian Literature (Hindi-Urdu); Muslim Cultures of South Asia; Intellectual History and Paracolonial Networks; Global Eighteenth Century; Human Rights and Transnationalism; Gender, Caste and Religion in South Asia; Material Culture and Dress Studies
Suvadip Sinha Associate Professor Director of Graduate Studies	228D Folwell Hall ssinha@umn.edu	South Asian cinema and literature; global modernities; nationalism; post-colonial theory and literature; philosophy of non-human; animality
Keijiro Suga	327F Folwell Hall ksuga@umn.edu
Travis Workman Professor Chair	220H Folwell Hall tworkman@umn.edu	Korean literature, film, and intellectual history; state violence and historical memory; melodrama; nationalism; humanism and its critiques

Teaching Faculty

Arabic

Name	Contact	Specialities
Katrien Vanpee Senior Lecturer Director of Arabic Language Instruction	231E Folwell Hall kvanpee@umn.edu	Arabic linguistics, teaching Arabic as a foreign language, pre-Islamic, classical and modern Arabic poetry, Nabati poetry, cultural heritage of the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf studies
Mohammed Hussein Teaching Specialist	228A Folwell Hall husseinm@umn.edu
Ali Mohamed Teaching Specialist	228A Folwell Hall moha2187@umn.edu

Chinese

Name	Contact	Specialties
Yufen Chang Senior Lecturer Director of the Chinese Flagship Program and Chinese Language Instruction	220K Folwell Hall chan2311@umn.edu
Chi-Ping Li Senior Teaching Specialist	227 Folwell Hall lixxx204@umn.edu	Chinese language, teaching Chinese as a second language
Hai Liu Senior Lecturer	227 Folwell Hall liux3655@umn.edu	Linguistics, teaching Chinese as a second language, classical Chinese and literature
Jin Yaliang Stone Senior Lecturer	227 Folwell Hall jinx0017@umn.edu	American literature, teaching Chinese as a second language
Yao Tu Lecturer Associate Director, Chinese Flagship Program	220D Folwell Hall ytu@umn.edu	Curriculum and teaching, instructional design and technology, OPI testing
Ling Wang Senior Lecturer	227 Folwell Hall wangx333@umn.edu	Chinese language pedagogy, curriculum design, proficiency-based language instruction and project-based Chinese language learning, ESL
Hong Zhang Teaching Specialist	zhang076@umn.edu	Chinese language, Chinese calligraphy

Hindi and Urdu

Name	Contact	Specialties
Meraj Ahmed Senior Lecturer Director of Hindi and Urdu Language Instruction	220C Folwell Hall ahmedm@umn.edu	Hindi and Urdu languages

Hmong

Name	Contact	Specialties
Bee Vang-Moua Senior Teaching Specialist Director of Hmong Language Instruction	230A Folwell Hall bvang@umn.edu	Hmong language
Kia Yang Teaching Specialist	230A Folwell Hall yang0864@umn.edu	Hmong Language

Japanese

Name	Contact	Specialties
Fumiko Matsumoto Senior Teaching Specialist Director of Japanese Language Instruction	220A Folwell Hall matsu021@umn.edu	Japanese language
Marnie Jorenby Senior Lecturer	231A Folwell Hall jore0003@umn.edu	Japanese language
Keiko Kawakami Senior Teaching Specialist	231A Folwell Hall kkawakam@umn.edu	Japanese language
Ayumi Mita Senior Lecturer	231A Folwell Hall amita@umn.edu	Japanese language
Masanori Shiomi Teaching Specialist	231A Folwell Hall shiom002@umn.edu	Japanese language
Kenichi Tazawa Teaching Specialist	231A Folwell Hall tazaw001@umn.edu	Japanese language

Korean

Name	Contact	Specialties
Hangtae Cho Associate Professor Director of Korean Language Instruction	220J Folwell Hall htcho@umn.edu	North Korea; dialectology and language policy; the growing divides of the past 70 years between North and South Korea in the areas of language, society, and culture; language pedagogy; proficiency assessment; phonology in general; Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teacher
Bryce Johnson Senior Teaching Specialist	421 Folwell Hall bljohnso@umn.edu	Korean language
Sugyung Kim Senior Teaching Specialist	229B Folwell Hall kimx3116@umn.edu	Proficiency-oriented language instruction and second language assessment, Korean as a foreign language, project-based Korean language learning, curriculum development
Suyon Kim Teaching Specialist	229B Folwell Hall kim00996@umn.edu	Korean language
Fatima Zahra Han Senior Teaching Specialist	421 Folwell Hall walji003@umn.edu	Korean language

Faculty Emeriti

Name	Contact	Specialties
Joseph Allen Professor Emeritus	jrallen@umn.edu	China; Taiwan; Taipei City; Chinese poetry and poetics; colonialist photography; Chinese textbooks and the modern nation

Affiliate Faculty

The following faculty members can serve as dissertation co-advisors and as a member or reader on graduate committees.

Name	Contact	Specialties
Hakim Abderrezak Associate Professor Department of French & Italian	303C Folwell Hall abder002@umn.edu	Representations of clandestine migrations in Arabic, French and Spanish, Maghrebi and Beur literature, cinema and music, the contemporary western Mediterranean, Francophone studies
Jeffrey Broadbent Professor Department of Sociology	1026 Social Sciences Building broad001@umn.edu	Political sociology, environmental sociology, climate change, social movements, institutions and culture, Japan, East Asia, cross-national comparative methods, network analysis, qualitative methods
Teri Caraway Professor Department of Political Science	1311 Social Sciences Building caraway@umn.edu	Southeast Asian politics, transnational labor issues, comparative political economy of labor, gender and comparative politics
Kale Fajardo Associate Professor Department of American Studies	104 Scott Hall kfajardo@umn.edu	Gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, queer of color critique, masculinity studies, transgender studies, Philippine Studies, Filipinix Studies, Asian American Studies, American Studies, Global Studies, globalization studies, migration studies, conceptual ethnographic practice, (UC) Santa Cruz School of Ethnography, visual cultures, photography, environmental humanities, human-fish relations
Keya Ganguly Professor Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature	222 Nicholson Hall gangu003@umn.edu	The Frankfurt School, Intellectual History of Vision, Sociology of Culture, Postcolonial criticism, Global cinema, Marxism, Peripheral Literature
Vinay Gidwani Professor Department of Geography, Environment & Society Institute for Global Studies	333 Social Sciences Building gidwa002@umn.edu	Labor geographies, theories of agrarian and ecological change, spatiality of class and identity politics, Marxism and post-Marxism, India
Rachmi Diyah Larasati Associate Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies	425 Ford Hall laras001@umn.edu	Performing arts in global politics and culture, the dancing body, political economy of aesthetics, tourism and female citizenship, Indonesia
Mai Na Lee Associate Professor Department of History	937 Heller Hall mainalee@umn.edu	Southeast Asia, Southeast Asian American/Hmong communities, Highland Southeast Asian Studies
Nabil Matar Professor Department of English	330C Lind Hall matar010@umn.edu	Arabic and European travel literature, early modern Euro-Islamic contacts, Arab-Islamic civilization, 17th-century British religious literature
Hiromi Mizuno Associate Professor Department of History	941 Heller Hall mizuno@umn.edu	Modern Japan, gender and sexuality, intellectual and cultural history, cultural studies of science and technology, nationalism and colonialism, human rights and international laws
Richa Nagar Professor Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies	425 Ford Hall nagar@umn.edu	Politics of development; feminisms, praxis, and people's movements; intersectionality, translations, and people's theater, South Asia
Yuichiro Onishi Associate Professor Department of African American & African Studies	808 Social Sciences Building ohni0001@umn.edu	African and Asian diasporic studies, black radicalism and internationalism, African American history, critical race studies, Asian American studies
Sonali Pahwa Assistant Professor Department of Theatre Arts & Dance	580 Rarig Center pahwa007@umn.edu	Middle East studies, performance studies, digital media, gender studies, youth culture, Egypt
Matthew Rahaim Associate Professor School of Music	170 Ferguson Hall mrahaim@umn.edu	Ethnomusicology, Indian music, ethnography and performance, Hindustani vocality
Sima Shakhsari Associate Professor Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies	428 Ford Hall sshakhsa@umn.edu	Transnational Feminist Theory and Practice, Transnational Queer Theory and Sexuality Studies, Diasporas, Necropolitics, Neoliberalism, Governmentality, Social Media, Refugee Studies, Middle East Studies, Political Anthropology, Cultural and Social Anthropology
Ajay Skaria Professor Department of History	924 Heller Hall skari002@umn.edu	19th- and 20th-century South Asia, environmental history, postcolonial studies/theory, intellectual history, adivasi religious movements, democracies and minorities
Hoon Song Associate Professor Department of Anthropology	395 Hubert H. Humphrey Center songx080@umn.edu	Ontology of power, materiality of sovereignty, psychoanalysis, biopolitics, philosophical anthropology, animality, US and North Korea
Wayne Soon Associate Professor Program in the History of Medicine	Shepherd Labs soonx005@umn.edu	History of medicine, history of modern China, Taiwan, and diaspora, history of health insurance and medicine, history of pandemics
Shaden M. Tageldin Associate Professor Department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature	218 Nicholson Hall tageldin@umn.edu	Empire and postcolonial studies, 19th- and 20th-century literatures in English, Arabic, and French, trans-African and trans-Asian studies, literatures of migration and diaspora
Ann Waltner Professor Department of History	912 Heller Hall waltn001@umn.edu	Ritual, law, religion, traditional Chinese social history, gender, analysis of historical documentation, rumor, gossip, Chinese history, world history, feminism
Margaret Werry Associate Professor Department of Theatre Arts & Dance	550D Rarig Center werry001@umn.edu	Cultural politics and performance of ethnicity, nationalism, and trans-nationalism in the Asia-Pacific region, performance theory and historiographic method, anthropological approaches to performance as social dramaturgy, critical race theory